Mugabe's Law

Updated Nov. 15, 2000 12:01 a.m. ET

For a single, shining moment, Zimbabwe had reason to hope. Zimbabwe's supreme court ruled that President Robert Mugabe's seizure of almost 2,000 farms was illegal and unconstitutional. The court found that Mr. Mugabe's government failed even to obey its own "fast-track" land seizure law that it had written only months earlier. The court thus ordered 11 government ministers as well as the police commissioner "to use all means and authority" to expel the farm invaders who have provoked a national crisis since February. Those police officers who failed to enforce the court's orders within 48 hours...